Learning to control your emotions during times of emotional stress can be beneficial to your mental health. There are always points in life where emotions overcome rational thought. This is a normal part of being human. It is recognizing and validating the types and impact of emotions that will help you while learning to control your emotions. Emotions and feelings are often controlled in daily life by people who want to maintain a calm focal point throughout the day. Emotional intelligence is important to prevent negative emotions from taking control of your life.

Emotions certainly play a big part in life, and decisions are often based on feelings. However, the problem occurs when emotions are out of control, inconsistent, and increase stress. Learning to control your emotions can help maintain a focused outlook on life. This is done through emotional intelligence which is emotional literacy, emotional awareness and emotional coping skills.

Emotional Intelligence and Learning to Control Your Emotions Learning to control your emotions with emotional intelligence is really balancing the internal feelings with the external environment. It is caring about how you honestly feel and expressing that without blame to others. Emotional intelligence is also caring about how others feel without placing internal blame on yourself. It is not manipulative; it is validating. Emotional intelligence means that you recognize what you are feeling and can express those feelings without physical or verbal violence or manipulation.

Another important aspect of learning to control your emotions is realizing that emotions are normal---everybody has emotions. It is the manner in which these emotions are expressed or subdued that causes inner turmoil and external strife.

Steve Hein, author of “EQ for Everybody,” has an excellent guide to emotional intelligence on his website Eqi.org. According to Mr. Hein, emotional intelligence is recognizing your emotions through verbal statements and when you “label your feelings, rather than labeling people or situations.”

Emotional Literacy Recognition and Validation Begin emotional literacy by verbally validating internal rather than external emotional statements. This is stating how you feel about a situation instead of your opinion on the situation. Mr. Hein explains that internal statements are "I feel impatient” and “I feel hurt and bitter". External statements are about the people and environment around you: "This is ridiculous" and “You are an insensitive jerk."

Emotional literacy is also the ability to recognize the difference between thoughts and feelings. Thoughts are similes and demonstrative statements such as, “I felt like screaming” and “I feel like that is ridiculous.” These are feeling statements, but they are constrictive, rather than expressive. They do not explain why or how you feel, thus do not form emotional intelligence.

Better statements for learning to control your emotions are those that take responsibility for the internal emotions. Use phrases such as “I feel angry” and “I feel annoyed.” This will help you take the important step into learning to control your emotions by recognizing and stating your feelings.

If you find you are having problems with emotional literacy, spend time asking yourself how you feel in a particular situation. Recognize and validate your emotions as well as those of the people around you. Mr. Hein states that it is very important to avoid people who invalidate you. He explains that while this is not always possible, you can choose to spend less time with people who attempt to have psychological power over you.

In emotional literacy, invalidation is a psychological attack that diminishes the expression of feelings. If someone close to you is invalidating your emotions through statements such as “You are stupid for feeling like that” or “I don’t care how you feel,” you have the right to verbally express your emotional literacy with statements such as "I feel mocked," or "I feel judged." Do not use “you” statements---these are invalidators and psychological attacks. If you feel as though you are continuously being invalidated and emotionally attacked by a spouse or loved one, please contact Ebasedprevention.org. The problem may not be that you have trouble learning to control your emotions, but that the other person has problems wanting to control your emotions.

Develop Emotional Awareness Edel Jarboe at Pioneerthinking.com explains that emotional awareness is imperative to learning to control your emotions. She explains that emotional awareness is “knowing which emotions you are feeling and why. It is the ability to see and understand the connection between what you are feeling and how you act on those feelings.” This means that you must be honest with your internal conversations for the strongest amount of emotional awareness. Emotional awareness is part of learning to control your emotions because it bridges the divide between how you feel and how you react.

According to Ms. Jarboe, the first step towards emotional awareness is taking personal responsibility for how you feel without basing these on the behaviors and actions of others. This is relative to making “I feel” statements instead of “You make me” statements. In this way, you will be able to recognize your emotional response to people and situations, which creates emotional awareness.

Develop Emotional Coping SkillsIt is important to learn how to take control of your emotions through the development of emotional coping skills.

At Mentalhelp.net, the free e-book, Psychological Self-Tools, proves an invaluable resource for developing emotional awareness and coping skills. While it is time consuming to go over the entire book, the outline states that emotional awareness and emotional coping skills have a very simple process:

-Pay attention to your emotions-Make an emotional investment in learning to control your emotions-Perform emotional self-assessments -Educate yourself about emotional health-Talk to others and consider alternative actions-Decide on a specific plan of action for emotional coping-Commit to learning to control your emotions and dedicate yourself to an emotional self-help plan

Learning to control your emotions takes patience with yourself. It requires that you understand your feelings and are honest with yourself and those around you. Learning to control your emotions also requires emotional literacy and labeling your emotions without blame or invalidation. This means that you must commit to inner validation of your emotions by recognizing emotional responses and committing to emotional coping skills. The simple steps are merely the beginning of learning to control your emotions, but are a good guideline for developing new emotional coping skills. Remember that everyone feels emotions; it is how the emotions are expressed or denied that is different for each person.

How Do You Deal with Difficult Emotions?It's natural to experience anger, jealousy, hurt - even though your mother told you that "a frown doesn't suit your pretty face, Dear!" But have you ever felt so overwhelmed by these emotions, or that you spend too much energy getting over them? Everyone could use some healthy options for dealing with difficult emotions. Find out how well you deal with suffering in this difficult emotions quiz.